Chris Stedman's Blog, page 7
February 6, 2015
The religious right, not new atheism, is driving the secular left
Lisa Wade at PS Mag asks a question to grapple with for anyone chalking the rise of the nones to new atheist writers or atheist activism. She says: Over the past 40 years, Americans have become increasingly likely to deny an affiliation with a religion. . . Overall, however, Americans do not report a corresponding decline in [Read More...]
The benefits of forgiveness
I’ve been thinking about forgiveness a bit, lately, and Olga Khazan at The Atlantic has a great piece on the topic: Talking about the “benefits of forgiveness” can feel slightly self-serving, like donating to charity only so you can tell people about it later. But one reason why people might avoid forgiving is that it feels like [Read More...]
February 5, 2015
Vox hangs around with a Men’s Rights Activist
At Vox, Emmett Rensin has an in-depth and well worth reading article taking a close look at what a typical Men’s Rights Activist (MRA) is like away from the keyboard. Unsurprisingly, “Max” (not his real name) is nonreligious: [Max] is an outspoken atheist and an active Libertarian. The contours are the same: a proactive anticlericalism and a [Read More...]
Putting Islamic terrorism in perspective
In response to my calling out other atheist bloggers for fear-mongering about Islam—specifically for hand-wringing about a poll which shows that 2 in 10 Muslim-Americans say violence against civilians can sometimes be justified, without ever putting it in the proper context by noting 6 out of 10 Catholics and Protestants and 5 out of 10 [Read More...]
Building better nonbelievers
At The New York Times, David Brooks candidly writes about problems I think modern nonreligious Americans seriously need to grapple with.* Brooks writes: As [sociologist Phil Zuckerman] describes them, secularists seem like genial, low-key people who have discarded metaphysical prejudices and are now leading peaceful and rewarding lives. But I can’t avoid the conclusion that the [Read More...]
Jacobin: Don’t blame Islam
Jacobin, the leading outlet for socialism and the American left, has been publishing some of my favorite pieces on Islam and atheism in recent months. Last week, David Mizner published a fantastic article on how misplaced our blame on Islam often is, particular in reference to the recent Charlie Hebdo killings. The truth is not merely that [Read More...]
February 2, 2015
Why we need to stop hiding mistakes
I used to think mistakes are an embarrassing part of the human experience, even though they were inevitable. But the more I meditate on how the world works and, more to the point, how I’d like the world to work, the more I’m coming to the view that mistakes are more than inevitable; they’re vital. [Read More...]
January 27, 2015
The poor aren’t to blame for the subprime mortgage crisis
Max Ehrenfreund, an old classmate of mine, has been writing some fantastic policy-related material at The Washington Post’s “Wonkblog.” I woke up to a very cool piece in my inbox: Irresponsible lending might have been one of the many causes of the financial crisis — but not just irresponsible lending to poor people, according to a new study. “The large [Read More...]
January 26, 2015
French Muslims have faced more violence since Charlie Hebdo than they did in all of 2014
Tracy McNicol at The Daily Beast reports: The National Observatory Against Islamophobia says there were 128 anti-Muslim incidents reported in France between the Charlie Hebdo killings and Jan. 20, compared to 133 last year. The Islamophobia monitoring group, linked to the French Council of the Muslim Faith, notes the figure only takes into account incidents reported to law enforcement. [Read More...]
January 21, 2015
Defending racist speech isn’t moral or productive
The following is a guest post by Aaron Underwood. At its core, I believe the rallying phrase “Je Suis Charlie” was meant to show that free speech cannot be strong-armed. The office of Charlie Hebdo has a long-standing history of legal and physical attacks, and France doesn’t have the same robust legal protections on free [Read More...]
